The five stages
Enquiry, estimate, approval, repair, invoice. Every job passes through all five whether or not they are written down.
When a stage is invisible, work stalls quietly. A vehicle waiting on approval looks the same as a vehicle waiting on a part unless the status says otherwise.
Fixing the handovers
Handovers fail for two reasons: the information is somewhere else, or nobody owns the next step.
Give each job a single owner at every stage and put the status where everyone can see it. Most of the internal chasing in a garage is one person asking another for something the system should already show.
Approval is where margin leaks
Extra work agreed over the phone and never added to the estimate is the most common cause of an invoice argument.
Record approvals against the job as they happen, including additional work. It takes seconds and settles the conversation at collection.
Workflow health check
- Can anyone see the status of every vehicle on site in under ten seconds?
- Does each job have a named owner today?
- Is additional work recorded at the point it is agreed?
- Are parts delays visible against the job?
- Is the invoice built from the approved work, or rebuilt?